Category: Sociology

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Climate Donald Trump Electric Vehicles Eli Pariser Episode Facebook Filter Bubble Google Joe Biden PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Project 2025 Social Media Sociology WSUM

TMI 12/15/2023 – Is the Filter Bubble the Wrong Mechanism to Explain Social Media Toxicity?, How Trump’s Project 2025 is a Next Level Disaster for the Climate and more

We’ve reported here on TMI on Eli Pariser’s “Filter Bubble” concept since its debut in 2010 at his Ted talk: the idea that Google was selectively feeding results back to the user that the user agreed with, making it so that one person’s search results were often vastly different than another’s. Mr Pariser pointed out that by putting us all in these Filter Bubbles, we couldn’t agree on what was even factual. A new article published in the PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) journal, however, says that is all wrong when applied to social media giants like Facebook, where they aim to increase your focus and time spent there by enhancing the chance of you getting made angry by what you see. We examine these competing concepts.

Then, we go over how the media is gleefully playing up any and all minutiae of Trump’s intentions for his second term except for one key part: how the Project 2025 plan that he’s assimilated is catastrophic for any chance we have to keep the environment from completely collapsing.

Finally, we present an update to a story we went over a few weeks back, putting a spotlight on how the EV infrastructure promised by Biden’s funding in 2021 is FINALLY starting to come to fruition. All this and more on TMI for Friday, December 15, 2023 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!

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Cisgender Episode Gentrification Interstate Highway System Racism Redlining Reparations Sociology Transgender White Supremacy WSUM

TMI 09/08/2023 – Fixing the Racism of Interstate Highways, Coiner of “Cisgender” Speaks Out on What it Really Means, How to Accurately Define “Gentrifying” and more

As summer winds down and many of us take to the road before things cool down, we take a look at the Interstate Highway system, and how its planning and development were used to smash communities of color all across the USA – and what we can do now to fix the problems caused by that. Sixty years of suffering is a lot to make up for, but it’s never too late to start.

Then, we hear from Dana Defosse, the PhD who coined the term “cisgender” some thirty years ago, and why she is horrified by how misconstrued and abused the term has become. Finally, we give a quick reminder of how to properly define “gentrification” so we can see it for the class struggle issue that it is, and not the cultural inconvenience some would like to paint it as. All this and more on TMI for Friday, September 08, 2023 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!

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Amazon Capitalism Corporate Malfeasance disinformation Economics Episode Fascism Jessica Wildfire Media Minnesota misinformation Obstruction Sociology Wall Street WSUM

TMI 06/09/2023 – “I Wonder What the Poor Folks Are Eating” by Jessica Wildfire, How Monopolies Get Their Way By Throwing Tantrums

Insightful author Jessica Wildfire writes this week about how we Americans ave been systematically shamed out of admitting when we are poor and need help. With her permission, I share “I Wonder What the Poor Folks Are Eating” from her Substack, a piece that details exactly how we’ve been led to try and show gratitude for being ripped off, and never, ever ask for help.

Then we go over the recent increase in monopolistic corporations throwing temper tantrums to get their way when we throw regulations at them that they find inexcusably bad… for their engorged profit margins. All this and more on TMI for Friday, June 9, 2023 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!

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Best of TMI Community Episode Freedom Science Sociology Time Ukraine War World War III WSUM

BEST OF TMI 01/28/2022 – Is It Really Community vs. “Freedom”?, World War III – Your Table is Ready, and There is No Absolute “Time”, More

THIS IS A REBROADCAST OF TMI FROM 01/21/2022.

Society seems pretty well torn in two, and the odd thing about it is that there appears to be mostly a conflict between those who want to focus on building and uplifting community between each other and those who prize, above all else, what they have been TOLD it means to be “free”. We examine this fundamental breakdown in communication to hopefully better prepare you to help heal the rifts so we can focus on the billionocracy that is keeping us ALL down.

Then, reports from Ukraine not the only things that are echoing the beginnings of historic, major wars. The fact that there are multiple major places of unrest boiling up simultaneously calls back to how wars like World War I, World War II and other major wars began. We discuss.

Finally, we examine the most current understandings of the nature of time itself, which may surprise you. After all, it has been completely proven that the closer you get to the surface of the Earth, the SLOWER time moves. Can there be any absolute notion of time when it bends depending on your location? All this and much more on TMI for Friday, January 28, 2022 – listen in for your Cure for the Common Media!

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Community Episode Freedom Science Sociology Time Ukraine War World War III WSUM

TMI 01/21/2022 – Is It Really Community vs. “Freedom”?, World War III – Your Table is Ready, and There is No Absolute “Time”, More

Society seems pretty well torn in two, and the odd thing about it is that there appears to be mostly a conflict between those who want to focus on building and uplifting community between each other and those who prize, above all else, what they have been TOLD it means to be “free”. We examine this fundamental breakdown in communication to hopefully better prepare you to help heal the rifts so we can focus on the billionocracy that is keeping us ALL down.

Then, reports from Ukraine not the only things that are echoing the beginnings of historic, major wars. The fact that there are multiple major places of unrest boiling up simultaneously calls back to how wars like World War I, World War II and other major wars began. We discuss.

Finally, we examine the most current understandings of the nature of time itself, which may surprise you. After all, it has been completely proven that the closer you get to the surface of the Earth, the SLOWER time moves. Can there be any absolute notion of time when it bends depending on your location? All this and much more on TMI for Friday, January 21, 2022 – listen in for your Cure for the Common Media!

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Black Economy Black Wall Street Donald Trump Episode Greenwood Name Science Sociology Tulsa Tulsa Race Massacre WSUM

TMI 06/04/2021 – One Hundred Years After Tulsa Race Massacre a Memorial Retrospective on Black Wall Street, How Your Name Affects Your Personality, What If Trump Goes to Jail – and WILL He?

Monday, May 31, 2021 marked the 100th anniversary of one of the most horrible events in American History: the Tulsa Race Massacre. If you aren’t familiar, please listen in as we recount the history of the Greenwood District of Tulsa, called “Black Wall Street”, and how it was destroyed in one of the worst displays of hate in history. If you’ve ever wondered what upsets your fellow Americans so much when they get told there’s no reason to feel oppressed, this will clear that up, fast.

Next, we look into studies that show that how you are named affects how others treat you. More, how others treat you can have a lasting effect on how YOU see yourself! Finally, many of us are just waiting and hoping that Donald Trump’s MANY illegal moves will finally put him away for good, but ho likely is that to happen, and more interestingly… what will happen if it does? All this and more on TMI for Friday, June 4, 2021. Listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!

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Election Integrity Episode Equality Homelessness House of Representatives SCOTUS Sociology White Supremacy WSUM

TMI 05/07/2021 – How Madison Can Cross the “Finnish” Line with the Homeless, How White Male Supreme Court Clerks Make a Less Representational Justice System, and How The House of Reps Needs More Reps

Madison, like many cities, struggles with how to solve its homelessness problem. Especially in the brutal Wisconsin winters, we don’t want people to freeze to death, but we need to be able to afford the solution. Finland knows a thing or two about Winter AND about homelessness, and their solution: make giving the homeless housing the FIRST thing you do, not third or fourth step down the line. While not cheap, it is far more affordable than any other approach, and actually STOPS homelessness.

Next, we look at the hoops one has to jump through to be a Clerk at the Supreme Court of the United States. These obstacles are making it more difficult for women and minorities to achieve this goal, and thus making the high court Judges and Justices that are often chosen from these clerkships more white and male. Finally, with the 2020 Census fully tabulated, we have the decennial struggle for which states will lose or gain seats in the House – but no one should be losing any, given that there’s no Constitutional reason to have the number of Representatives frozen. All that and more on TMI for Friday, May 7th, 2021! Listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!

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Episode Media Peace Peter B. Collins Pop Culture Rush Limbaugh Sociology War WSUM

TMI 02/26/2021 – The Damage of Limbaugh w/ Peter B. Collins, Pop Culture’s War on Peace

For decades, a fellow from Missouri named Rush Hudson Limbaugh III dragged media standards away from objective reporting of factual events, past the realm of opinion and into the depths of slander and service to the darkest impulses of humanity’s prejudices. But how did it all get that way? Joining us is equally-veteran in the radio industry Peter B. Collins, who will outline precisely how Rush came to prominence and even go over his own experience meeting Mr. Limbaugh early on in Rush’s career.

Then, we will discuss how the very idea of war is deeply and persistently ingrained into USA’s pop culture, and how this makes any push for peace far more difficult than it needs to be. All this and more on TMI for Friday, February 26, 2021! Listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!

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COVID-19 Episode Joe Biden Kamala Harris Media Policing Reform Science Social Security Sociology Universal Health Care White Supremacy WSUM

TMI 02/05/2021 – Go Big with Carl Gibson, Ho-hum COVID disaster, ICE has gone rogue

Friend of the program Carl Gibson of https://www.classwardaily.com/​ joins us to discuss how the Democratic Congress and Presidency have an enormous opportunity to make a real difference… or, history shows, be destroyed. Also, Carl tells us how his recent stock purchase is going.

Next, we compare the horrific daily death totals for COVID-19 aren’t making us bat an eye, even as they stack up against and tower over other individual disastrous days in the history of America. We discuss why.

Finally, we review how ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) seems to be operating against orders at virtually every turn since Joe Biden took office, and what effect that is having on innocent lives. All that and more on TMI for Friday, February 5, 2021 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!

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2021 Attack Big Ag Big Oil Capitol Building Attack Climate COVID-19 DAPL Deb Haaland Democratic Party Donald Trump Episode Equality Insurrection Joe Biden Kamala Harris KeystoneXL Line 3 National Guard Native Americans Pentagon Political Language Riot Sociology WSUM

TMI 01/29/2021 – Deb Haaland vs. Big Oil, Big Ag vs. Democratic Victory, Trump’s Pentagon Withheld the Guard, and Undercounting COVID

Native American tribes have been brutalized, subjugated, cheated and mistreated by the Federal Government of the United States since the very beginning. With the nomination of Rep. Deb Haaland (D – NM), an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, to the office of Secretary of the Interior things could be looking up for tribal peoples of USA, and looking dicey for their latest abuser, Big Oil. We discuss.

Then, we explore how it is that agricultural states like Wisconsin used to be reliably Democratic in their voting patterns, but have since found their rural areas turning solidly Republican – and what the Democratic Party has the unique opportunity to do RIGHT NOW to get them back into the fold.

Next, we examine new evidence that shows that the DC National Guard was withheld from protecting the Capitol Building on January 6th from the highest levels, DAYS in advance of the event! Finally, we look at the startling under-counting of COVID-19 deaths in America, and show where in America this phenomenon is at its worst. All that and more more on TMI for Friday, January 29, 2021 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!